Thunderbolts and Lightning
by NAEUM
Summary: Very, very frightening. A simple battle with Raikou, and other ramblings. (older oneshot)


It wasn't often that a trainer paused coming down the steps of the Pokemon League.

Plenty hesitated on the way up; to catch their breath, to worry about what might await them at the top, to start healing their team with potions and hastily giving them some last–minute TM choice. Some even turned around and went scuttling right back the way they came, following the advice of some defeated trainer or other they had met on the road up.

But coming down was a different story altogether. Either you fled down those steps clutching your poor friends, or you strode with your head held high. There was very little in between, and what little there was – the blank stare and robotic gait, the joyous skipping and shouting – tended to be as constant a motion as the extremes.

Damien, being Damien, was performing a descent that was pretty far towards the proud end of things, when he stopped about halfway down and stared, his eyes wide. One hand flew to his mouth. He _trembled._ If he hadn't bought a little belt for storing them back when he'd started to actually fight and win and make money, he might have dropped his pokeballs right down the steps.

All in all, not what he was supposed to do right after defeating the Pokemon League. Or getting defeated by them. The only reason Damien's reaction made sense was that it had nothing to do with what he'd just been through, and everything to do with what now laid ahead.

"You again?"

'_I heard your little talk._'

It wasn't spoken, but it wasn't telepathic either. Thunder rumbled overhead, and somewhere in–between the growl and snap of it, there seemed to be words. The approaching storm spoke to Damien, perhaps because it was unlikely to be some regular storm. Perhaps it was the work of the beast sitting at the foot of the stairs, facing away from him. It looked something like a very large, yellowish arcanine, with a funny whiskered face, but the purple cloud tumbling down its spine was unmistakable. Raikou: The incarnate of lightning. First Destructor of the Tower.

Tucking his hands behind his back, Damien took a few nervous steps down towards the legendary. It didn't run; it was clearly _waiting. _The first time it ever had. Come to think of it, this was the first time it'd ever talked to him, face to face. Or back–to–face, what_ever._ It seemed to be giving him more attention than it ever had before.

…Maybe he should actually say something to it, then. It likely wasn't polite to keep a deity waiting. "D-did you? That's nice."

Peals of laughter ricocheted between the clouds, exact words unnecessary. Of course it had. Damien hadn't exactly been quiet about the pep talk he'd given his team after he'd beaten the Pokemon League, bringing them all out at the top of the steps and staring about dreamily at the excellent day, his excellent friends.

("So I'm gonna go to other places now, and find more Pokemon in need. I– I think we're finally strong enough – not that fighting's the _most _important thing, of course", he'd proclaimed, earning himself a few odd looks from those trainers whose lives were dedicated to the art–)

The beast interrupted his reverie, turning and slipping up the stairs with so much grace, it was practically liquid. Greased lightning, even. _'__If you're really strong enough, then I will be your sword."_

Strong enough? That sounded like some sort of test, and Damien was really not in the mood for tests. His team wasn't in the best shape, somewhat healed but mostly tired. He needed to get to a Pokemon Center, stat - and besides, he wanted to move on from tests and fighting, now that the Elite Four was over. His father would be happy; that's all that mattered. He could go back to the forest and continue his work healing wild Pokemon. "Hang on, hang on!" he yelped, backing up the stairs. "What are you trying to sa–"

_'__Now!' _In one swift motion, Raikou's claws were unsheathed, and it was _running _at Damien, taking the steps twelve at a time. Thunder roared all around them, louder as the mythical beast shot towards him, not giving him a chance to protest the rather awful timing of its challenge. _'__Prove your strength!'_

If this had been the first time Damien had seen the beast in motion, he would surely have gone stiff as a board. Hell, if _this_ had been his first encounter with Raikou – if Damien had been only ten – he'd have run away shrieking. He nearly did, back then. But so many glimpses and distant sightings had given him courage enough; with a flourish, he pulled a pokeball from his pocket, and placed it directly in front of him. "Come on out!"

And she came out groaning; a chubby talonflame with unusually large wings, one leg bandaged following a swipe from Lance's aerodactyl earlier in the day. Buzz wasn't in any state to fly yet, exhausted as he was from the Pokemon League, but she flapped hard, creating a sizeable enough razor wind to hurl the legendary back down the stairs, head over tail. Which… looked awfully painful to Damien. He cringed; he hadn't intended on actually hurting his frie– uh, a large and very powerful legendary. There were probably rules about that. "Oh sh–! Are you okay?"

The thunder rang out in laughter as Raikou stood up, his tail flicking this way and that. It reminded Daniel of a playful skitty, that tail in constant motion. Except this skitty had just taken the kind of fall that should have broken its neck like a champ, and its laughter was causing turbulence; Buzz fluttered in the air, trying desperately to maintain altitude. _'__If you want to make me your sword, you must capture me when you are at your strongest. Is that not how this works? You must try harder.'_

"Capture?!" Okay, there _had _to be some sort of rule against capturing legendaries out there! Not that Damien could exactly remember any, but typically those trying to capture legendaries were Bad Guys Who Broke The Law And Beat People Up, so the capturing bit was probably illegal too. "I– I can't do that! Not to _you!_"

The thunder said nothing, but Raikou's eyes flickered with a fairly obvious extrasensory, and Damien's mind was filled with memories that weren't entirely his, but not entirely the legendary's. Him helping all those Pokemon, and Raikou patrolling the distant borders, chasing off less–than–savory trainers who might interfere. Raikou wanting to help more, but never being close enough or trusted enough, never thinking the child to be strong or trustable enough. Damien eventually becoming strong enough to chase those people off himself, and Raikou no longer being needed… but still wanting to help, and help even more than it'd ever been able to. Raikou wanting Damien's trust, but unsure how to achieve it– unsure how to _prove _Damien could be trusted, unsure how to make Damien trust the unpredictable storm. Raikou thinking, and thinking, and one day realizing–

_'__FIGHT ME!'_

Suddenly Raikou was no longer at the foot of the stairs. The back of his neck prickled, the thunder picked up behind him, and Damien whirled to face the Legendary head–on yet again. Gravity aided its charge down this time, making it even faster than before. "Left!" he called out, and Buzz just barely dodged a bolt of lightning; it left a definite scorch mark on the stairs, and the smell of burnt ceramic. No time to wonder what the cleaners were going to think, though - Raikou was within pouncing distance, gathering itself for a great leap. It wasn't seriously going to attack _him_, was it?

He caught the look in its eye, and suddenly was no longer sure about that. "Razor wind! Get him!" he snapped, just in case, and the beast was knocked sideways, the gale hitting it even harder than before. As it struggled for footing on the stairs – which were rather too narrow for its great size – the hawk crashed into it with a powerful brave bird, driving it right to the edge. Claws dug in, gouging the marble, as both Raikou and Buzz struggled not to end up going off the side and falling onto the rocks below.

…Which may well have been part of Raikou's battle plan, given the moment Buzz tried to fly out of the situation, she was tasered out of the sky with another thunderbolt, and a terrible shriek. The legendary stood easily, watching the bird be recalled with something like amusement, and begin to pace back to the center of the stairway. _'__She fought well enough.'_

It seemed to be waiting for another Pokemon to presumably chew up and spit out, but Damien folded his arms once he had Buzz stowed in his belt, though he couldn't meet the beast's gaze; he just stared at the pokeball he held in concern. "What was that for? You... shouldn't have hurt her."

Amusement was the only response he got._ '__You can heal her. Don't you remember when you first got her? You healed her after I saved her for you...'_

Another pink flicker in its eyes, and memories poured into Damien's head again. A plucked chick, wrapped carefully in a Team Aqua beanie to keep her warm. Raikou curling about her, only moving for Damien to check on her, roaring at everything else that tried to come close. How much Raikou wanted to help out _more _back then, how much it still did. A deep yearning there, held back only by distrust. Memories of humans, hated humans, doing hateful things. Memories Raikou was trying to… move past? Was that it?

Was that why it had _hurt _his closest friend?

Damien held his head for a long moment, trying to make sense of all the information. There was almost too much there; too much emotion in that thing's head, too many thoughts, too many perfect memories of way too many mundane days, where it had been expecting Damien to finally hurt a pokemon and he'd managed not to. Every simple day was a test to it. And yet there was something it simply couldn't find. Some sort of proof. "That is… b–besides the point…"

The clouds darkened and growled yet again; the beast's moods seemed to be about as wild as the weather it commanded. _'__It's exactly the point. With your healing, we can fight forever until you're strong enough!'_

"That's really not how it works, come on–!" But the memories were gone, and the legendary was coming for him again, charging up another thunderbolt, leaving Damien with little choice but to fight back. The air crackled with sparks, but the main event bounced easily off wobbuffet's mirror coat, and soft shadows marked out an arena for the two pokemon – an arena too small for the Raikou to easily manoeuvre in. It couldn't even pace; it just stood there, its fur a little charred from the bounced 'bolt, and stared at him, infuriated.

_'__I said fight! This isn't a fight! This just… nothing! Nothing at all!'_

"Hey, that's one of my close friends you're having a go at." Damien threw his shoulders back, and made a proper effort at staring down the legendary. It had hurt his closest companion; it was definitely going to know his strength now. "I got him _without you."_

Right, he'd gotten the wobbuffet when he'd been exploring the world. You know, without Raikou. As the newest member of the team, it didn't have a name besides, well, Wobbuffet, which Damien always found a bit embarrassing, but he was a fan of letting Pokemon choose their names, and it hadn't yet found something better for itself, so. Raikou brought its face quite close to Wobbuffet's, whiskers trembling. _'Let. Me. Go.'_

"N-not if you're going to keep trying to hurt my friends. You're being ridiculous... I've told you before, I'm not a fighter anyway. I'm a healer." He put another pokeball on the ground, and out came a raichu. She waved cheerfully to the Raikou, before picking up her owner's mood and looking between him and the arena in some confusion as he went on with the speech. Her electricity soon reacted with that of the clouds, causing sparking all over her body, but she seemed to hold back from attacking or discharging. "I healed Blossom without you. You remember that?"

Raikou shifted its paws in some worry. Electricity was no longer doing its bidding; a powerful will, a will to _live_, was siphoning off its power. Memories stirred in their Extrasensory connection of just how that little pichu had awoken, how it had found her seperated from the herd, how Raikou had laid with her for nights on end and not let anyone approach, but Damien focused his will and they were distorted - Blossom hadn't stirred by its own powerful currents, but by Damien, and Damien's herbs. He'd spent days nursing her to health, and what had Raikou done for her? Roared at the trainer who tried to help her? At that admission, the Trainer's back went even straighter, his confidence skyrocketing. Yes, Raikou had only been a nuisance to helping Blossom get better.

Definitely not the point Raikou had wished to make! The beast backed up as far as it could now, lowering its head, but its eyes were certainly not burning with submission. This was another gathering itself for a great peal of thunder and a pounce for the ages, and Damien tensed just looking at it. Blossom desperately stabbed her tail into the ground as more and more electricity flowed through her, the legendary power being almost too much for one small mouse. She was starting to look a bit frantic, unsure of why these two were even fighting; Damien smiled at her as best he could. The thunder roared, and lightning crashed through the clouds, shaking the makeshift arena. 'I_ defended you from the dangers–'_

"But she's _my_ friend. Not yours! And so are all the others. I'm the one who spent time with them, and you just think hurting them is okay." Pokeball after pokeball landed on the ground. Meganium, furret, chansey; because Damien's real strength was in numbers, in his friends, and with Raikou trapped there was very little it could do when they decided to enter the arena. Vines whipped around its legs, holding it in place, and even if it had wanted to, it couldn't move. Tied down and trapped as it was, especially with Blossom neutralizing its electricity, the meganium slowly sapping its strength... Against Damien's entire team, all at once, it had little hope. Eyes closed in silent submission, it looked almost pitiful.

A lot pitiful, actually. Guilt raised its head - maybe Damien shouldn't have trapped it like that? It was probably breaking some rule, somewhere. Pokemon battles were sort of meant to be one on one, and he really didn't want to capture Raikou. But... if it was going to be so wild and keep attacking like this, he didn't have a choice. "But. Here's the thing. Maybe they could be your friends. I-if you stop hurting them."

One eye opened. _'__Just what are you suggesting?'_

"Ah, I'll show you."

And the vines released _just _so Raikou could be bowled over by Damien's pokemon, cheering even as they tried to hug and nuzzle and just generally be affectionate all over it. Only Blossom stood back from the celebrations, continuing to ground the legendary so that it could be coddled and petted: Wobbuffet even grabbed its great cheeks and began to do something called 'smooshing'. Raikou seemed utterly stunned by all this, watching as Damien cradled Buzz in his arms and tried to feed her some herb or other.

This should have been a humiliating defeat, all things considered. It was a slap in the face away from being that, or a single nasty word. But instead - oh, so much kindness. What a _gracious _victory. Everyone felt good about it. And standing behind them, with an ultra ball in his hand, his strength and kindness proven beyond doubt, was their trainer. Such a stupid-looking trainer, what with the fading pink-streaked hair and the denim jacket covered in obscure paper badges. But... _Raikou's _trainer.

Raikou looked at the other Pokemon, equal parts friendly and fierce, and then looked to Buzz, small and vulnerable as ever, found something there it wanted to protect. Something it always had, actually. Though protect was perhaps the wrong word - the small boy lost in the woods was no boy now, there was no need to protect him. He'd just proved he could stand on his own. But he needed help. Help that Raikou was more than happy to give.

Damien grinned, and Raikou caught itself mustering up a smile in return. "You just have to trust me, you know?"

...Well, maybe it wasn't the oh-so-ceremonial end Raikou had been expecting. But then again, maybe this was better.


End file.
